Deadly Surveillance (1991) (TV)

Director:

Paul Ziller

Writers:

Hal Salwen (writer)
Paul Ziller (writer)

Release Date:

6 September 1991 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Thriller

Plot:

A detective investigates a series of murders that he begins to suspect are being committed by a woman...

Plot Keywords:

Cocaine | Drugs | Pool Hall | Cop | Apartment

Cast

Michael Ironside	...	Fender
Christopher Bondy	...	Nickels
Susan Almgren	...	Rachel
Vlasta Vrana	...	Palatzo
David Carradine	...	Lieutenant
Robert Ozores	...	Hector
Richard Zeman	...	Mehlman (as Richard Zeeman)
Chip Chuipka	...	Burglar (as Chip Ciupka)
George Buza	...	Coffee Shop Patron (as George Busa)
Doris Malcolm	...	Wrinkled Woman
Roland Nincheri	...	Bartender
Michael McGill	...	Michael the Junky
Norris Domingue	...	Proprieter
Irene Kessler	...	Old Lady on Bus
Tyrone Benskin	...	Pool Room Cop

Country:

USA | Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:12 | USA:R

Company:

Allegro Films

Soundtrack:

Too Bad

WITH CARE, IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN BETTER.

Detective partners with a metropolitan police department, played by Michael Ironside and Vlasta Vrana in this Canadian work made for cable television, answer a burglary-in-progress call, uncovering more than a routine break-in and are tasked to return to the same apartment building for a narcotic stakeout. At the center of the scenario is a discovery by Rick Fender (Ironside) that his former partner, Eddie Nickels (Christopher Bondy), is romancing an attractive blond (Susan Almgren) who is residing in the targeted flat. The erstwhile mates, no longer friends due to a shared problem with a former girlfriend, are ordered to cooperate with each other by their supervising lieutenant (David Carradine - customarily wooden and in this film also saddled with a motheaten role). Ironside plays against type as someone with whom we may sympathize, as he attempts to conjoin the pieces of a puzzle which may implicate Rachel, the paramour of Nickels, in an apparent illegal drug syndicate. Bondy gives a nicely coloured performance as a lover lost in a sea of ambiguity, anxious that Rachel may in fact not be whom she appears, which is the idea behind Fender's growing cynicism. This is the first produced script by Hal Salwen, who later wrote and directed the remarkable DENISE CALLS UP, but there is little room here for Salwen's native wit, although what there is raises the work's appeal in several instances. Both the director and the scriptor apparently have sparse knowledge of universal law enforcement procedures, a crippling shortcoming for a film postulated upon treatment of a police investigation.